A rectangle is $5$ centimeters long. The rectangle is also $8$ centimeters wide. What is its area?
$5\text{ cm}$ $8\text{ cm}$ 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 The area is the length times the width. The length is 5 centimeters. The width is 8 centimeters. Thus the area is $5\times8$ square centimeters. $ \text{area} = 5 \times 8 = 40 $ We can also count 40 square centimeters.